Items where Author is "Jenkinson, Tim"

This paper focuses on funds of funds (FOFs) as a form of financial intermediation in private equity (both buyout and venture capital). After accounting for fees, FOFs provide returns equal to or above public market indices for both buyout and venture capital. While FOFs focusing on buyouts outperform public markets, they underperform direct fund investment strategies in buyout. In contrast, the average performance of FOFs in venture capital is on a par with results from direct venture fund investing. This suggests that FOFs in venture capital (but not in buyouts) are able to identify and access superior performing funds.

With data from all the leading international investment banks on 220 IPOs raising $160bn, we test the determinants of IPO allocations. We compare investors’ IPO allocations with proxies for their information production during the bookbuilding and the broking (and other) revenues those investors generate for bookrunners. We find evidence consistent with information revelation theories. We also find strong support for the existence of a quid pro quo: broking revenues are a significant driver of investors’ IPO allocations and profits. The quid pro quo remains when we control for any unobserved investor characteristics and investor-bank relationships.

The persistence of returns is a critical issue for investors in their choice of private equity managers. In this paper we analyse buyout performance persistence in new ways, using a unique database containing cash-flow data on 13,523 portfolio company investments by 865 buyout funds. We focus on unique realized deals and find that persistence of fund managers has substantially declined as the private equity sector has matured and become more competitive. Private equity has, therefore, largely conformed to the pattern found in most other asset classes in which past performance is a poor predictor of the future.

Investment consultants advise institutional investors on their choice of fund manager. Focusing on U.S. actively managed equity funds, we analyze the factors that drive consultants’ recommendations, what impact these recommendations have on flows, and how well the recommended funds perform. We find that investment consultants’ recommendations of funds are driven largely by soft factors, rather than the funds’ past performance, and that their recommendations have a significant effect on fund flows. However, we find no evidence that these recommendations add value, suggesting that the search for winners, encouraged and guided by investment consultants, is fruitless.

The merits of investing in private versus public equity have generated considerable debate, often fueled by concerns about data quality. In this paper, we use cash flow data derived from the holdings of almost 300 institutional investors to study over 1,800 North American buyout and venture capital funds. Buyout fund returns have consistently exceeded those from public markets; averaging about 3% to 4% annually. We find similar performance results for a sample of almost 300 European buyout funds. Venture capital performance has varied substantially over time. North American venture funds from the 1990s substantially outperformed public equities; those from the early 2000s have underperformed; and recent vintage years have seen a modest rebound. The variation in venture performance is significantly linked to capital flows: performance is lower for funds started when there are large aggregate inflows of capital to the sector. We also examine the variation in performance of funds started in the same year. We find marked differences between venture and buyout leading to a much more pronounced impact of accessing high performing funds in venture investing.

How and when to exit portfolio company investments are critical choices facing private equity funds. In this paper we analyze 1,022 European private equity exits, using information on fund and portfolio company characteristics, and on conditions in capital markets. For over 43% of the exits, private equity funds sold to each other and we analyze why such secondary buyouts have gained in popularity relative to IPOs and sales to corporate acquirers. We find that the exit route depends on various portfolio company characteristics, and that conditions in the debt and equity markets have a strong influence on exit choice. The existing literature has tended to portray the IPO is the “preferred” exit route. However, our analysis suggests this is mistaken: private equity funds take advantage of ‘windows of opportunity’, and the exit route that maximizes value varies with market conditions.

We study the performance of nearly 1,400 U.S. buyout and venture capital funds using a new data set from Burgiss. We find better buyout fund performance than previously documented – performance has consistently exceeded that of public markets. Outperformance versus the S&P 500 averages 20% to 27% over a fund's life and more than 3% annually. Venture capital funds outperformed public equities in the 1990s, but underperformed in the 2000s. Our conclusions are robust to various indices and risk controls. Performance in Cambridge Associates and Preqin is qualitatively similar to that in Burgiss, but is lower in Venture Economics.

Private equity funds pay particular attention to capital structure when executing leveraged buyouts, creating an interesting setting for examining capital structure theories. Using a large, detailed, international sample of buyouts from 1980-2008, we find that buyout leverage is unrelated to the cross-sectional factors – suggested by traditional capital structure theories – that drive public firm leverage. Instead, variation in economy-wide credit conditions is the main determinant of leverage in buyouts, while having little impact on public firms. Higher deal leverage is associated with higher transaction prices and lower buyout fund returns, suggesting that acquirers overpay when access to credit is easier.

As the regulation of public companies has tightened, many companies have switched to stock exchanges with lower regulatory requirements. We analyse the consequences for smaller quoted companies of switching between the two London markets, which differ in their regulatory regimes. Firms that switch to lighter regulation experience, on average, negative announcement returns of approximately 5%. However there is a longer-term upward drift in stock returns after the switch. We relate these financial returns to improvements in operating performance in the years following the switch, suggesting that for some companies, and their investors, a lighter regulatory environment may be appropriate.

Assessing investment performance for private equity is inherently difficult due in large part to the nature of illiquid assets. Compounding this problem, investors and researchers alike are bedeviled by the existing lack of comprehensive, high-quality data. The current state of affairs obscures answers to basic practical questions, leads to lack of standardization, and creates confusion.

This paper examines measurements of “top quartile” performance, a status widely prized in the industry, especially in light of past research showing return persistence by funds raised by the same general partner. Using three popular data sources and applying metrics typically adopted in the industry, the authors demonstrate that even modest variations in methods can result in half of all funds being able to claim “top quartile” results. Sources of variation include methods of categorizing funds, definitions of vintage year, choice of the data source, specification of performance metrics, and treatment of geography and currencies.

We compare fees charged by investment banks for conducting IPOs in the U.S. and Europe. In recent years the “7% solution”, as documented by Chen and Ritter (2000), has become even more prevalent in the U.S., and is now the norm for IPOs raising up to $250m. The same banks dominate both markets but European IPO fees are roughly three percentage points lower, are much more variable, and have been falling. We review explanations for the gap in spreads and find the evidence consistent with strategic pricing. U.S. issuers could have saved over $1bn a year by paying European fees.

Competition between investment banks for lead underwriter mandates in IPOs is fierce, but having committed to a particular bank, the power of the issuer is greatly reduced. Although information revelation theories justify giving the underwriters influence over pricing and allocation, this creates the potential for conflicts of interest. In this clinical paper we analyse an interesting innovation that has been used in recent European IPOs whereby issuers separate the preparation and distribution roles of investment banks, and keep competitive pressure on the banks throughout the issue process. These ‘competitive IPOs’ allow the issuer greater control and facilitate more contingent fee structures that help to mitigate against ‘bait and switch.’ But unlike more radical departures from traditional bookbuilding – such as auctions – the competitive IPO is an incremental market-based response to potential conflicts of interest that retains many of the advantages of investment banks’ active involvement in issues.

Despite the central importance of investors to all initial public offering (IPO) theories, relatively little is known about their role in practice. This article is based on a survey of how institutional investors assess IPOs, what information they provide to the investment banking syndicate, and the factors they believe influence allocations. We find that investor characteristics, in particular brokerage relationships with the bookrunner, are perceived to be the most important factors influencing allocations, which supports the view that IPO allocations are part of implicit quid pro quo deals with investment banks. The survey raises doubts as to the extent of information production or revelation.

Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) have raised around $22bn from investors since 2003, and comprised 20% of total funds raised in US IPOs in 2007. SPACs are interesting structures - allowing investors a risk-free option to invest in a future acquisition. However, we show that more than one-half of approved deals immediately destroy value. Investors, who can observe the market's view of the proposed deal, as well as that of the founders, should listen to the market, since the extreme incentives faced by the SPAC founders create corresponding conflicts of interest. We propose a simple, observable rule - based on market prices - which investors should heed.

Stabilisation is the bidding for and purchase of securities by an underwriter immediately after an offering for the purpose of preventing or retarding a fall in price. Stabilisation is price manipulation, but regulators allow it within strict limits – notably that stabilisation may not occur above the offer price. For legislators and market authorities, a false market is a price worth paying for an orderly market. This paper compares the rationale for regulators' allowing IPO stabilisation with its effects. It finds that stabilisation does have the intended effects, but that underwriters also seem to have other motives to stabilise, including favouring certain aftermarket sellers and enhancing their own reputation and profits. A puzzling aspect of stabilisation is why underwriters create ‘naked short’ positions which are loss-making to cover when, as is usual, the aftermarket price rises to a premium. We set up a model to show that the lead underwriter may profit from a naked short at the expense of the rest of the syndicate given the way commissions are apportioned between them. We argue that a naked short mitigates the misalignment of interests which stabilisation causes between issuer and lead underwriter, although it does so at the expense of the non-lead underwriters.

Unlike in the U.S., the initial price range for European IPOs is seldom revised, although issues are often priced at the upper bound. We develop a model that explains this seemingly inefficient pricing behavior. As in Europe, but not in the U.S., underwriters in the model obtain information from investors before establishing the indicative price range. A commitment to stay within the range is necessary to extract private information from investors. Ours is therefore the first treatment in which the bookbuilding range has a clear economic role. The model has important implications for empirical research based on European primary market data.

Corporate governance is one of the most topical and controversial areas of business and finance. This article provides an overview of the questions that it raises and proposed policy responses. It points to the diversity in systems of corporate governance around the world, the apparently paradoxical performance of different systems and an association with different forms of corporate-governance failures. The article discusses a range of proposed remedies including the restructuring of boards, regulation of markets in corporate control and limitations on executive remuneration. It also considers whether the need for harmonized corporate-governance rules can be diminished by freedom of mobility of corporations and competition between legal systems.

This paper uses evidence from a data set of 27 European IPOs to analyze how investors bid and the factors that influence their allocations. We also make use of a unique ranking of investor quality, associated with the likelihood of flipping the IPO. We find that investors perceived to be long-term holders of the stock are consistently favored in allocation and in out-turn profits. In contrast to Cornelli and Goldreich (2001), we find little evidence that more informative bids receive larger allocations or higher profits. Our results cast doubt upon the extent of information production during the bookbuilding period.

Addressing some of the underlying economics and the empirical evidence on bookbuilding.

We examine the costs and benefits of the global integration of initial public offering (IPO) markets associated with the diffusion of U.S. underwriting methods in the 1990s. Bookbuilding is becoming increasingly popular outside the United States and typically costs twice as much as a fixed‐price offer. However, on its own, bookbuilding only leads to lower underpricing when conducted by U.S. banks and/or targeted at U.S. investors. For most issuers, the gains associated with lower underpricing outweighed the additional costs associated with hiring U.S. banks or marketing in the United States. This suggests a quality/price trade‐off contrasting with the findings of Chen and Ritter, particularly since non‐U.S. issuers raising US$20 million–US$80 million also typically pay a 7% spread when U.S. banks and investors are involved.

This paper considers the arguments for and against private‐sector financing—as opposed to operational management—of public services. Under certain conditions the costs of public and private finance will be similar, but these conditions are unlikely to hold for many public services. Using examples from the UK, we show how decisions to introduce private financing are often political, with little economic rationale.

This paper examines the impact of a major change in dividend taxation introduced in the United Kingdom in July 1997. The reform was structured in such a way that the immediate impact fell almost entirely on the largest investor class in the United Kingdom, namely pension funds. We find significant changes in the valuation of dividend income after the reform, in particular for high-yielding companies. These results provide strong support for the hypothesis that taxation affects the valua- tion of companies, and that pension funds were the effective marginal investors for high-yielding companies

This article uses clinical evidence to show how the German system of corporate control and governance is both more active and more hostile than has previously been suggested. It provides a complete breakdown of ownership and takeover defence patterns in German listed companies and finds highly fragmented (but not dispersed) ownership in non-majority controlled firms. We document how the accumulation of hostile stakes can be used to gain control of target companies given these ownership patterns. The article also suggests an important role for banks in helping predators accumulate, and avoid the disclosure of, large stakes.

The real interest rate and the equity risk premium are critical economic parameters that influence a wide range of economic decisions. This paper considers the problems involved in estimating expected real interest rates and the equity risk premium, and hence the overall cost of capital. Using UK data, it suggests reasons why estimates based on historical returns may be misleading, and discusses alternative approaches to estimating the cost of capital.

The aims of this paper are, first, to construct a consistent comparative set of data on the sources of finance for investment over the period 1970–94 for the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and Japan, and, second, to challenge conventional views of the international differences in financing patterns. We find that there is little evidence to support the view that Germany is a “bank-financed” system nor that the United Kingdom or the United States are “market financed”. Whilst bank finance is more important in Japan, there has been a steady decline in the proportion of investment financed by banks over the last 25 years.

The introduction of competition into utilities is currently being pursued in the many countries, including the UK. Competition can take various forms, such as competition for outputs, inputs, franchises, and outright takeovers. Attention is currently focused on output competition, whereby customers are being given a choice of final supplier in many industries. We consider the implications of the introduction of such competition, including the effects on industrial structure and contracts, cross-subsidies and distributional concerns, and uncertainty and stranded contracts. We also analyse the transitional problems encountered as competition is introduced and suggest that the UK regulators and government have, in some key respects, failed to define a clear and consistent policy.

The main aims of this paper are, first, to construct a consistent comparative set of data on the sources of finance for investment over the period 1970--89 for Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and second, to challenge some conventional views of the international differences in financing patterns. The paper documents the substantial problems of international comparisons, and argues that net sources and using data based on National Income Accounts provide the most appropriate and consistent information. We conclude that there is no `market-based' Anglo-US pattern of financing of industry. Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States are internally financed with small or negative contributions from market sources. Japan has been more externally financed with both banks and markets contributing larger shares than in the former group. Over the 1980s, the period of financial liberalization, all countries, except Japan, have become more internally and less market financed.

A significant recent development has been the extension of market processes to activities which were previously provided by the public sector. A central feature of newly privatised markets is the emergence of widespread forms of contracting. Explicit contracting is used where in the past transactions had taken place internally within a public enterprise of a government department. The design of efficient forms of contracting has been an essential component of the development of new markets and quasi-markets such as those in defence and health. This paper examines evidence of the structure of contracts and the extent to which they contribute to or detract from the efficient operation of markets, discusses the role of contracts in some newly emerging markets, and evaluates contracts in utilities where regulation rather than competition policy is widespread.

This paper considers the claim that explicit profit sharing reduces the marginal cost of labour This is contrasted with the view that implicit profit sharing occurs through wage bargaining Using a microeconomic data set from the UK we find no evidence that the introduction of profit sharing reduces base wages and hence the marginal cost of labour However firm profitability is found to have a positive effect on wages which supports the hypothesis of implicit profit sharing through wage bargaining These findings suggest that it is hard to justify the favourable tax treatment of profit related pay found in the UK

Until recently, the periodic assessment of a company's cost of capital presented few problems to the company's finance director. However, the cost of equity capital, an important component of a company's overall cost of capital, can now be a more complex problem. Some of the most important techniques for computing the cost of equity capital are reviewed and the equity risk premium is discussed in some detail.

Previous analyses of the wage/profit relationship at a disaggregative level in Britain have given positive results for pre-war years but negative results for early post-war years. However, this is probably due to the increasingly unreliable nature of the enterprise- based profits series published in the National Accounts until 1982. We have constructed, instead, what are essentially establishment-based Census data on profits for fourteen manufacturing industries, up to 1986. We have also been able to extend the disaggregative unemployment data, the publication of which also ceased in 1982. The wage equations that we have estimated include profits and unemployment (and other variables) in an explicit Nash bargaining model, in line with widely held views as to the way that wage negotiations are actually conducted. The results obtained show a highly significant role for profits, as well as having other implications, notably the positive (hysteresis) effect of industry unemployment, by contrast with the normal negative effect of aggregate unemployment, and the important effects of relative wages - which play a large role in various disaggregative studies of the propagation of inflation.

This paper provides an updated survey of a burgeoning literature on testing, estimation and model specification in the presence of integrated variables. Integrated variables are a specific class of non-stationary variables which seem to characterise faithfully the properties of many macroeconomic time series. The analysis of cointegration develops out of the existence of unit roots and offers a generic route to test the validity of the equilibrium predictions of economic theories. Special emphasis is put on the empirical researcher's point of view.

When a firm makes an initial public offering (IPO) of it equity, the accuracy with which its shares are priced will be an important factor determining the cost of "going public." In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan IPOs are systematically priced at a discount relative to their subsequent trading price. In the United States and the United Kingdom such discounts are, in average, around 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively, in normal trading conditions. In contrast, the average Japanese IPO rose in price by nearly 55 percent after one week. Existing theories seem unable to explain this persistent underpricing of IPOs across countries.

Investors increasingly look for private equity funds to provide opportunities for co-investing outside the fund structure, thereby saving fees and carried interest payments. In this paper we use a large sample of buyout and venture capital co-investments to test how such deals compare with the remaining fund investments. In contrast to Fang et al. (2015) we find no evidence of adverse selection. Gross return distributions of co-investments and other deals are similar. Co-investments generally have lower costs to investors. We simulate net returns to investors and demonstrate how reasonably sized portfolios of co-investments have significantly out-performed fund returns.

This paper analyzes whether fair value estimates of fund net asset values (NAVs) produced by private equity managers are accurate and unbiased predictors of future discounted cash flows (DCF). We exploit the fact that private equity funds have finite lives to compare reported NAVs to DCFs based on realized cash flows for 384 venture capital (VC) funds and 195 buyout funds spanning 1988-2016. Findings reveal that Buyout funds' NAVs display little systematic bias, but VC funds' NAVs are relatively aggressively biased compared to Buyout funds, especially since 2000. Accuracy
is worse in the first half of the sample period even though NAV estimates generally are more conservative. Overall, the results reveal significant differences in the association between NAVs and DCFs for Buyout versus VC funds, which is particularly important for private equity fund investors in their consideration of the relevance and reliability of NAV estimates provided by fund managers.

In this paper, we investigate the role of educational ties in private equity. Although we cannot observe all the funds that bid for a target company, we construct the set of potential bidders based upon their size and investment cycle, as well as the location
and sector of their target companies. By gathering detailed educational histories of fund partners and CEOs of target firms, we find a significantly higher incidence of educational
ties in completed deals than exists among the set of potential bidders. We argue that educational ties between fund managers and CEOs of target companies play a (positive) role in sourcing deals and winning competitive transactions. The
alma maters of CEOs and private equity partners are notably concentrated among the top universities, and we find that exclusivity of educational ties is important. However,
we find no evidence that such educational ties produce higher returns for investors.

The UK has pioneered the introduction of competition into previously monopolistic utility industries. Competition has been introduced progressively, starting with BT, and continuing with the gas and electricity industries, where it is to be completed during 1998. In water, competition has so far been restricted to new developments, and it is said that it will be phased in once the initial franchises expire. These radical policy innovations have been controversial, and raise significant generic problems concerned with market design, regulation, corporate strategy and income distribution. The lessons from the UK provide an essential input into liberalization throughout the world, as well as helping to shape the transitional arrangements already in place in the UK.

This volume brings together independent experts with the specialist regulators to provide a comprehensive analysis of the issues. The common themes are drawn together in the introduction. The volume will be essential reading for utility companies, regulators, politicians and policy advisors.

Many organizations find themselves open to a hostile takeover bid and this book, with a comprehensive case study approach, offers an understanding of what can happen, why and how to manoeuvre from under a hostile takeover. "Hostile Takeovers" presents a case study analysis of this make or break issue, disclosing the strategies and outcomes of over 40 hostile takeovers. Through these cases, the authors offer both guidance and specific takeover strategies and how to overcome them. They also draw out general conclusions - bringing new ideas on, for example, how takeovers can affect the long-term success of an organization. The text looks at takeover bids on Bassett Foods, Marina Developments and Piccadilly Radio, among others.

The credit crunch was most likely viewed as a mixed blessing by many private equity executives. On the one hand, it signalled the end of the most favourable set of economic conditions the private equity industry had ever witnessed: abundant capital, low interest rates, increasing stock market values and a truly amazing willingness amongst banks and other investors to provide debt financing on a scale and on terms never previously observed. But the clouds that have descended since August 2007 have at least one silver lining: the intense public scrutiny of the private equity industry has been, to some extent, diverted into other areas of the financial system, in particular the investment banks, rating agencies, imploding hedge funds and structured vehicles etc. During this crisis, private equity funds have attracted little attention, except for their activities in taking advantage of banks 19 desire to sell debt backing private equity deals. But the private equity industry remains active, having attracted large amounts of committed capital, and is continuing to invest 13 albeit not in the headline grabbing purchases of large public companies. And public scrutiny is redeveloping.

We examine the costs and benefits of the global integration of IPO markets associated with the diffusion of U.S. underwriting methods in the 1990s. Bookbuilding is becoming increasingly popular outside the U.S. and typically costs twice as much as a fixed-price offer. However, on its own bookbuilding only leads to lower underpricing when conducted by U.S. banks and/or targeted at U.S. investors. For most issuers, the gains associated with lower underpricing outweighed the additional costs associated with hiring U.S. banks or marketing in the U.S. This suggests a quality/price trade-off contrasting with the findings of Chen and Ritter [Journal of Finance], particularly since non-U.S. issuers raising USS20m-80m also typically pay a 7% spread when U.S. banks and investors are involved.

Individual investors increasingly trade and hold mutual funds via investment platforms, many of which make their own fund recommendations. Using data from leading platforms in the U.K., we examine the drivers, impact, and performance of these recommendations. Platforms’ recommendations favor funds with a low cost to investors, but also favor affiliated funds and those which share more of their commission revenues with platforms. Recommendations affect flows considerably, although investors somewhat discount recommendations of affiliated funds. Recommended funds outperform non-recommended funds overall, but recommended affiliated funds do not.

Investment consultants market their services by claiming that their fund manager recommendations add significant value. Using detailed data from the leading investment consultants we find no such evidence. A forensic analysis of consultants’ disclosures reveals a number of practices that explain their claims: comparisons to benchmarks rather than to peers, inclusion of simulated and backfilled returns, use of rating survivorship conditions, and unexplained exclusions of products from the analysis. We find that recommended products have similar return and risk characteristics to products that are not recommended, but deviate less from their benchmarks.

The ultimate performance of private equity funds is only known once all investments have been sold, and the cash returned to investors. This typically takes over a decade. In the meantime, the reported performance depends on the valuation of the remaining portfolio companies. Private equity houses market their next fund on the basis of these interim valuations of their current fund. In this paper we analyze whether these valuations are fair, whether the extent of conservative or aggressive valuations differ during the life of the fund, and at what stage interim performance measures predict ultimate performance. This paper is the first to use the quarterly valuations and cash flows for the entire history of 761 fund investments made by Calpers – the largest U.S. investor in private equity. Our main findings are as follows. First, over the entire life of the fund we find evidence that fund valuations are conservative, and tend to be smoothed (relative to movements in public markets): valuations understate subsequent distributions by around 35% on average. We find a significant jump in valuations in the fourth-quarter, when funds are normally audited. Second, the exception to this general conservatism is the period when follow-on funds are being raised. We find that valuations, and reported returns, are inflated during fundraising, with a gradual reversal once the follow-on fund has been closed. Third, we find that the performance figures reported by funds during fund-raising have little power to predict ultimate returns. This is especially true when performance is measured by IRR. Using public market equivalent measures increases predictability significantly. Our results show that investors should be extremely wary of basing investment decisions on the returns - especially IRRs – of the current fund.

This clinical paper analyses a new way of conducting IPOs which has recently been introduced in the U.K. The essential feature of Accelerated IPOs (aIPOs) is that investors form syndicates to bid for the entire offering, and then execute an immediate IPO (within a week). Vendors can use an auction to determine whether the valuation is higher in private equity, trade, or public equity hands. aIPOs address two problems that regulators and academics have associated with conventional IPOs conducted via bookbuilding: inaccurate valuation and questionable use of discretion over allocation. Conflicts of interest are avoided as the advisors who organise aIPOs work for the investors rather than the issuing company.

This Paper uses evidence from a dataset of 27 European IPOs to analyse how investors bid and the factors that influence their allocations. We have the complete books for these deals - amounting to 5540 bids - and so can analyse directly how bids and allocations are related. All these deals are private sector IPOs where the bookrunner was a leading European investment bank. We make use of a unique ranking of investor quality, associated with the likelihood of flipping the IPO, as produced by a group of US and European investment banks. We find that 'high quality' investors are consistently favoured in allocation and in out-turn profits. We also find that bids submitted via the bookrunner and large bids received better pro-rata allocations and higher average profits. We find that a very small proportion of all bids submitted during the bookbuilding contain price limits - especially in hot IPOs - and, in contrast to Cornelli and Goldreich (2001), we do not find that that such bids are favoured in terms of allocation.

Private equity’s high degree of leverage in the boom years leading up to the recent bust is a dominant factor in that market’s current precarious state. Valuations have fallen precipitously and are likely to fall farther, with some firms going into default. But many firms will prove robust, and those firms with cash available should be able to find excellent bargains in 2009 and 2010.

Tax savings associated with increased levels of debt are often thought to be an important source of returns for private equity funds conducting leveraged buyouts (LBOs). However, as leverage is available to all bidders, the vendors may appropriate any benefits in the form of the takeover premium. For the 100 largest U.S. public-to-private LBOs since 2003, we estimate the size of the additional tax benefits available to private equity purchasers. We find a strong cross-sectional relationship between tax savings and the size of takeover premia; and on average the latter are around twice the size of the former. Consequently, the tax savings from increasing financial leverage essentially accrue to the previous shareholders rather than the private equity fund that conducts the LBO. It is, therefore, unlikely that (ex ante predictable) tax savings are an important source of returns for private equity funds. Furthermore, policy proposals that aim to restrict leverage or the tax-deductibility of debt are likely to have their impact mainly on existing owners of companies.